It would be almost impossible to imagine anything more beautiful than the aspect of Teesdale—especially of that portion of Teesdale—in the months of September and October—when they are fine and seasonable that is, and bring such skies, such winds, and such suns as are due, in these two most gorgeous months of the year. In this particular season they were all that could be desired, and our lovers—for lovers they were, though no explicit word of love had ever passed between them—enjoyed their glory to their heart’s content. Eleanor was satisfied that Michael did not speak to her; the spell of the present time was so delicious that she would not have had it broken. She had forgotten outside troubles and difficulties; she only felt that all was well, and that a happiness awaited her in the future, so great that she could well afford to wait for it. September sighed itself out in golden glory, leaving a luxury of ripening tints on every tree, filling the tangled hedges with many-coloured flames of dying weeds; for, as every one knows who lives in the country, the smaller plants that grow in the ditches and near to the ground—the wild geranium, the smaller hemlock, or that plant which is akin to it, the rose-bushes, the hawthorn, and wild guelder rose—these are the things that ‘turn’ first, these the objects on which autumn first places her crimson finger; and then, when she has embellished the hedges, and is pleased with the result of her handiwork, she becomes bolder, mounts higher, attacks the trees—the oak and the beech first, the sycamore and the ash following in their turn. Then it is that the river gains his stronger voice, and rushes along, ever more tumultuously. Then it is that o’ nights the air is keen, and that at that hour which has said good-bye to afternoon, and is not yet evening, there is a strange, metallic, lambent light in the sky, a light which seems also almost to crackle and sparkle in the very atmosphere, a magic, unearthly light, which has its charms for those who love to study nature in her more obscure phases. It was on a glorious, crisp afternoon, a little beyond the middle of October, that Eleanor returned to the Dower House, after driving about a bevy of little Johnsons the whole afternoon. She dressed herself then, and went to dine and spend the evening at the old doctor’s house. After dinner Michael came in. He seemed lately to have enjoyed an unusual quantity of leisure in the evening hours. The talk turned to books; amongst other books to a book of poetry, some passage in which was disputed. Eleanor said that she had the book, and would go across to her house and fetch it. Upon this Michael announced that he should convey her across the square, and had gone as far as the door of the doctor’s house with her, when his old friend, who was in his library, called to him, hearing his step. ‘Go to him,’ said Eleanor. ‘I will fetch the book, and return to you.’ And she walked quickly across the square to her own door.